ON OUR last visit to Singapore last November, we had the unpleasant experience of being swindled by a retailer who misrepresented the value of some goods and concealed the fact that they had no warranties.
When challenged, the retailer denied any wrongdoing, so I contacted the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which later represented me at the Small Claims Tribunal. The shopkeepers failed to turn up in court and were ordered to repay $1,280 they had overcharged.
Determined to keep stalling, they then lodged an appeal, claiming they had not been notified of the original hearing. This was subsequently rejected and the repayment order stood. Needless to say, they still failed to pay.
Travel website TripAdvisor lists many similar tourist horror stories and it is common knowledge among locals that there are a few 'no-go' shopping areas in Singapore.
How ironic that in Australia - or the United States or Britain - citizens risk being mugged or even stabbed walking down the street, but similar instances of retail dishonesty are virtually unheard of, thanks to effective consumer protection laws.
By contrast, riding a bicycle through the pedestrian underpass of the Clemenceau bridge in no-nonsense Singapore will cost you a $1,000 fine.
But when it comes to retailers swindling the nation's guests, thumbing their noses at court orders, damaging the reputation of all decent Singaporeans, and costing the economy huge sums in lost revenue through lack of tourist confidence and ensuring they never want to return, the authorities seem strangely reluctant to act.
In 2003, STB started blacklisting errant traders for the benefit of visitors but this has been abandoned. I wrote to the minister responsible, outlining an even better way to eradicate this problem. To my dismay, I was not even afforded the courtesy of an acknowledgement.
My solution? Post a prominent notice valid for say, six months, in the store of offenders warning shoppers that the store has been reported before - with fines of around $10,000 for obscuring or removing it without authority.
This would act as a deterrent to others, provide an on-the-spot alert to every shopper who enters, and eliminate the need to identify rogue retailers beforehand through lengthy (and generally impractical) Internet searches.
Ernest Thompson
South Australia
The very day after I posted this letter the store paid up when they discovered I was looking for a lawyer to enforce a Writ of Seizure and Sale. To be fair, the STB really did a great job, but a notice in the offending store would ensure it doesn’t happen to others.
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